L.A. Police Officer Gets 1 Year After He Admits to Possessing Illegal Weapons : Crime: The defendant calls himself a collector.

A Los Angeles police officer assigned to the West Valley Division was sentenced to a year in federal prison Tuesday after admitting he kept illegal weapons, including a machine gun and a silencer, hidden in his home.

In a statement to U.S. District Court Judge Michael Byrne before he was sentenced, Officer Michael Edelstein portrayed himself as “nothing more than a gun collector” and cited his 10-year police career in asking for leniency.

“I ask you to take into account all the good community service, not false accusations,” said Edelstein, who also complained that his gun collection worth more than $10,000 had been confiscated by police.

But Byrne rejected the plea and sentenced Edelstein to the mid-level term under federal sentencing guidelines on his guilty plea to possessing illegal weapons.

While acknowledging that he had “fired as many shots in sport as anyone in this courtroom,” the judge said, “I find no purpose in the use of machine guns, certainly no sporting purpose.”

Byrne said Edelstein as a police officer should have known that he was violating the law by possessing weapons “that are so extremely dangerous that in the hands of the wrong people . . . can cause so much tragedy.”

Edelstein, 31, also faces up to a year in state prison on his no-contest plea to a charge of assault in a Ventura County barroom brawl. He also faces trial on charges that he purchased a stolen Rolex watch in an August undercover sting operation in Tarzana.

In the Tarzana incident, Edelstein and two other men were arrested after purchasing two Rolex watches, two gold rings and other gold jewelry from undercover officers for $1,500, police said. The men apparently believed that the merchandise was stolen.

Edelstein has been relieved of duty without pay pending a hearing on administrative charges that he is a convicted felon, police Lt. Fred Nixon said. A board of superiors is expected to recommend that he be terminated, Nixon said.

Edelstein came under suspicion early this year after an undercover police surveillance team watched him and another man fire automatic weapons at an Angeles National Forest firing range.

A search of his home revealed a Colt AR-15 .223-caliber machine gun, a 9 millimeter pistol and a silencer hidden under floorboards and in a safe at his home.

Edelstein had been free on $15,000 bail after his arrest on the federal charges, but was jailed in August after Los Angeles police arrested him on the stolen merchandise charge.